


Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Roll

by Idlewild



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Cats, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson at Columbia, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Episode s01e10 Nelson v. Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5000455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idlewild/pseuds/Idlewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cat adopts Foggy during his first semester at Columbia. Things become more than a bit complicated when Matt gets involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nocturnal

Something silky soft slinking between his ankles makes Foggy look down from his book. The cat is a solid bright orange, all sleek fur and lithe movement, a reminder of the coming autumn. The fact that this may well be the last day of the year that Foggy can wear shorts while reading on a bench on campus just makes its arrival all the more symbolic.

‘Hey buddy,’ Foggy coos, reaching down to stroke it. The cat head-butts his palm, a purr already starting from deep within. ‘You like that? Such a cute kitty. Where’d you come from, huh?’ Foggy chats inanely to it as it keeps twining between his legs and wrapping its long slender tail around his wrist. Eventually he puts down his book so he can fondle it with both hands, and it jumps up next to him on the bench. It has a patch of white fur on its chest, but no collar or ear tattoos – and considering how starved for cuddles it seems, Foggy can only assume it must be homeless. Its deep amber eyes turn to delighted slits as he scratches it between the ears.

Two girls on roller skates swish past the bench, making “aaaw” noises at the cat, which tilts one ear in their direction even as its main focus stays on Foggy. It steps its front paws on his thigh, kneading it slightly, and he tries not to wince at the claws. Instead he holds his hand next to its whiskers and it rubs its cheeks on it. Then it raises its head and looks straight through Foggy, as though deep into his soul, before climbing further up on his lap to head-butt his face. Foggy makes a sound much like the ones those girls just made, he just can’t help it. This is a good cat. Its purr is a deep rumble, somewhat incongruent with its small, nimble form, its fur is the softest thing Foggy has touched since his bunny Clover passed away four years ago, and oh dear god, it just lay down in his lap.

So now Foggy is on this bench with a rolled-up bun of fluff on his legs, and there is no way he’s moving until the cat does. He picks up his book to resume reading, one hand moving through the autumnal fur, and the kitty just stays right there, purring like a tiny jet engine.

Not until it shifts and stands to stretch does Foggy even contemplate going inside. Two small paws dig into each of his legs and the back arches up under his nose before the cat steps down onto the bench to languidly stretch its back out. Foggy takes a quick peek at its bum and notes that it’s a male. Most ginger cats are, anyway.

‘Hey kitty, I gotta go home now. Some of us don’t have fur to keep us warm, you know.’ It’s getting chillier by the minute, and Foggy could really do with some coffee and a hoodie right about now. ‘Maybe I’ll see you around, huh?’ In response, the cat steps back on his lap to shove his face into Foggy’s cheek again, then hops gracefully onto the ground.

Foggy pockets his book and walks off. The cat follows. Nay, _he_ follows the _cat_ – because he has just trotted right past him, tail held high and twitching at the base in a most beckoning way. And even though he has somewhere to be – in bed, with a hot drink – Foggy keeps following. No questions asked. Soon enough, the cat has led the way to the campus chapel and jumped up into one of the niches in the burgundy brick wall. He sits there like he owns the place, tail coiled comfortably around his front paws, the picture of feline superiority. When Foggy leans over to pet him, he breaks out of his elegance slightly to sit up on his haunches and bop his head in Foggy’s palm once more.

‘See ya then, buddy,’ Foggy says and starts for a coffeeshop. When he turns back towards the chapel not ten steps later, the cat has curled up in his niche and is grooming his tail. Foggy smiles and leaves.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Not much later, he is back in his room, carrying two overpriced lattes. Matt is on his bed, back against the headboard and eyes closed as he listens to something – probably a textbook – on his laptop. When Foggy greets him and shoves the door closed, he pauses the playback, pops the earphones out and puts his glasses on. 

‘Hey man, what’s up?’

Foggy reaches the non-vanilla latte towards him. ‘I bring coffee.’ He nudges the back of Matt’s hand with the paper cup.

Matt takes it with both hands, sniffing appreciatively. ‘Thanks!’

‘Guess what?’ Foggy sits on his own bed, not waiting for a response before continuing. ‘I met a cat. I think he lives at St Paul’s; you’d like him.’ 

Matt huffs a laugh. ‘What, because he’s a Christian? Nah, I’m not too fond of cats. They tend to trip me up and I think I might be allergic.’

‘Oh. Well, it was a nice cat, anyway. He used me as a bed. Guess my pudgy thighs are good for something!’

Matt laughs outright this time.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Over the course of the term, Foggy meets the cat more times and in more places than seems entirely plausible. He must have the entire campus as his territory, and now Foggy has apparently been incorporated in it. Several people he shares lectures with even ask if it’s his cat after having seen him dashing up to Foggy for a casual cuddle multiple times.

One time, the kitty intercepts him and leads him to the chapel again, and Foggy has no choice but to sit on the freezing steps to pet him. The leaves around them now match his fur, which is going slightly bushier at the neck and tail as winter edges near. Foggy sips at his rapidly cooling seasoned latte, arguably the best thing about autumn.

‘I think I shall call you Pumpkin Spice,’ he tells the cat who is just rubbing himself behind Foggy’s back, tail a moving belt around his waist before he climbs on his lap. ‘Is that a yes?’ Pumpkin Spice kneads his paws into Foggy’s legs, clearly preparing them for use as a cushion. ‘Oh, sorry, buddy, not today. I’ll freeze to death out here and I have to go study.’

He stands up carefully, letting the cat step off him at his own pace, and gives him a final stroke all the way to the tip of his tail before speed-walking home.

When Matt gets in a while later, Foggy tells him, ‘I named my cat.’

‘It’s not your cat, per se,’ Matt states matter-of-factly.

‘I know, I know. Tell that to him. I think he wants to adopt me. _He_ , not _it_. And his name is Pumpkin Spice now.’

Matt looks incredulous. ‘That’s a ridiculous name.’

‘Is not.’

‘Is so.’

‘Whatever, dude, you’ve never met him. You don’t get a say. It suits him. He’s orange and warm.’

‘If you say so…’ Matt mutters, but a smile is teasing the corners of his mouth.

~~~~~*~~~~~

It gets steadily colder outside, the leaves now more the colour of Matt’s hair than Pumpkin’s fur as they gather in soggy piles along the campus paths. 

‘I haven’t seen my cat in days,’ Foggy complains to Matt as they’re walking back from the library, arm in arm. ‘Wanna swing by St Paul’s and see if he’s home?’

Matt shrugs. ‘Sure, I guess. Do you really think he lives there?’

‘I just hope he lives _somewhere_. I don’t want him to freeze this winter.’

They walk all around the chapel, but Pumpkin Spice is a no-show. Foggy thinks he might be asleep in the pews, so they go inside where a priest is gathering hymnals from the latest service. Foggy asks her if the church has a cat, while Matt meanders off towards the altar.

‘The ginger one?’ the priest asks. ‘No, he just hangs around. I don’t know whose he might be.’

‘If he gets cold, would you let him in?’

The priest just smiles. ‘Oh, there’s no “let” about it. He gets in. But if he’ll catch some rats while he’s here, I’m all for it.’

Foggy thanks her and does a sweep of the small church in search of his cat, still without luck. He finally ends up by Matt who is sitting right up front, head bowed. As Foggy draws up next to him, he looks up and gathers his cane, and they leave in silence.

~~~~~*~~~~~

The snow arrives in fits and starts as Advent advances. Matt starts going to church more often – his own church in Hell’s Kitchen, not the campus chapel – and Foggy misses him in their room. One Sunday noon when Foggy comes home from buying bread and milk, Pumpkin Spice is sitting on the steps to the dorm, neatly licking his paws.

‘Hey buddy!’ Foggy stoops to pet him, and when he rises to go inside, the cat slinks in with him.

‘No no no no, P.S., my roomie doesn’t like cats! You can’t be in here, we’re not even allowed pets. You’ll get hair on all our things and Matt will sneeze and oh, who am I kidding?’ Because even as he says all of these things, he has already let the cat into their room. Pumpkin Spice sniffs around briefly, then jumps onto Foggy’s bed to continue his interrupted grooming session.

‘Okay, fine, I guess you can stay until he comes back,’ Foggy says fondly before heading to the kitchen to make himself some sandwiches. He also brings back a saucer of tuna – Matt likes to put it on his pasta for whatever awful reason – even though he knows that doing so is a sure-fire way to garner him a second roommate.

‘Hello, kitty, look what I got you!’ Pumpkin hops off the bed with a series of very beseeching meows, ramming himself into Foggy’s shins. ‘Yes, okay, hang on… There you go. Don’t tell Matt, I’ll buy him new tuna. Man, how can you both even eat that? It _stinks_.’

The cat responds by gathering his paws further under himself to get as close to the fish as he can without actively sitting _on_ the plate. Foggy settles on his bed to eat. Once the saucer on the floor is licked spotless, Pumpkin joins him to sprawl out lazily along his hip, whipping his tail against Foggy’s arm until he starts scratching him. He resigns himself to eating his sandwich one-handed, because cat trumps tidiness. The bits of cheese he drops somehow find their way into the kitty’s maw.

‘Right, Spicy,’ Foggy says when lunch is over, ‘this has been great and all, but my actual roomie might be back at any moment and your furry butt has to vacate the premises.’ He grabs the cat around the middle, standing him on his chest and staring into those unguarded eyes. When Pumpkin starts to lie down on his belly, he wraps his arms around him and gets out of bed. He doesn’t want to do this, but he can’t keep the cat here. He tells him as much as he carries him downstairs and plunks him down outside the front door.

‘Go home, buddy,’ he sighs, closing the door between them.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Foggy has just managed to air out his duvet to hopefully get rid of any allergens when Matt gets back. His nose and cheeks are rosy from the cold and he sniffs the air.

‘Sorry, yeah, the cat was here,’ Foggy confirms. ‘And sorry some more, because I gave him your tuna. I’ll totally buy you more. I’ll do it right now if you wanted to have it for lunch?’

Matt smiles at him as he hangs up his coat. ‘It’s fine, Foggy, I already had lunch.’

‘At church? You were gone long today.’

Matt mumbles non-committally in that way Foggy has learned means he doesn’t want to tell the truth but also doesn’t want to lie.

‘A girl?’ Foggy teases. ‘Did you lunch with a girl?’

Matt doesn’t say anything, just smiles secretively, and Foggy takes that as confirmation.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Foggy spends Christmas at his sister’s new place in Long Island. By the time New Year’s Eve has come and gone, he’s stuffed to the brim with food and sweets and familial niceties and wants nothing more than to go back and spend the last few days of the break in the relative peace and quiet of his dorm. He misses Matt, and even though Candace has two beautiful cats, he misses Pumpkin too.

Matt’s face lights up as soon as Foggy steps through the door, and Foggy immediately drops his bags and sits next to him on his bed to wrap him up in a hug. This takes Matt totally by surprise, but he quickly relaxes and hugs back.

‘You smell like fire and caramel and mint…’ he mumbles into Foggy’s hair. Then he winches slightly and pulls back, quite possibly blushing. ‘Sorry, that just… that just came out.’ He turns away, awkward, but doesn’t go for his glasses, which Foggy takes as a major trust point. ‘So. How was your break?’

Foggy accepts the subject change. ‘Awesome, dude! Missed you too, though. Next year, you’re coming with. I told them all about you… or, you know, I talked about you. When it came up. A lot. Anyway. Mom won’t take no for an answer, so it’s a Nelson Christmas 2011 for you and no getting outsies.’ Foggy realises he’s blabbing, having apparently picked up the proverbial torch of awkward from his friend. ‘Anyway… how was yours?’

‘Calm. Bit boring. Got you a late gift, though.’

‘Me too! Plus I come bearing homemade edibles from at least four relatives, which you’ll have to help me eat because A, I’ve gained quite enough weight this season already and B, I was _told_ to give ‘em to you.’

Matt is grinning, and also blushing a little again. ‘Wow, Foggy. Tell your family thanks from me. And do they really want me there?’

‘Of course! My parents want to meet you, like, _yesterday_. They want us to come for dinner some day. Hey, have you seen Pumpkin Spice at all?’

Matt looks taken aback by the non sequitur and trips over his words slightly. ‘Um, no, I… haven’t really seen much of anything, you know. But I haven’t heard any meowing or had any sneezing fits either, so…’

‘Right. Sorry. Oh well, I’ll go look for him later. But first presents!’

~~~~~*~~~~~

It’s dark and snowing when Foggy makes it outside. He doesn’t hold out much hope of finding his cat in this weather, but he goes to St Paul's anyway. It’s closed and all the niches in the walls are empty, so Foggy takes his small bag of left-over turkey back with him. As he nears the dorm, Pumpkin Spice finds him instead. He is white in more places than his chest now, skinnier than Foggy remembers him, and just as happy to see Foggy as Matt was earlier. Foggy hunches to pet him, but he ducks away. Maybe petting will get the snow to his skin.

‘I have Christmas dinner for you,’ Foggy informs him. ‘Let’s go home and – oh, yeah, Matt’s home.’ He takes out his phone to get some roommate approval, but Matt doesn’t pick up even on the second ring. By now, Foggy’s feet are frozen solid and Pumpkin Spice has placed himself between them to use him as an umbrella. Foggy gives up.

‘Okay. Come on then, kitty.’

They walk side-by-side to the dorm and up the stairs. Azlan from next door spots them and looks about to say something, but Foggy buys his silence with promises of jalapeño candied almonds and assurances that this is a highly temporary visitor.

‘I think we’re in the clear,’ he tells the cat once Azlan has vamoosed. ‘Now, let me just see if Matt’s in before you – hey! I said wait. Dude.’ Pumpkin is already on Foggy’s bed, but Matt is gone from his. ‘ _Cat_. You think you’re boss here? Because you’re not. Matt’s boss. I’m co-boss. You’re just a ball of fur with teeth,’ Foggy admonishes as he strips out of his winter gear and puts on sweatpants, but the furball doesn’t even pretend to listen, too busy licking molten snow from his pelt. Foggy rolls his eyes at him. 

After hanging his jeans up to dry in the bathroom they share with Azlan and Ravi, Foggy looks for Matt over in the kitchen. He’s not there either, so he goes back home and kneels by the bed to feed his furry friend bits of turkey straight from his hands. The kitty purrs loudly between mouthfuls, rubbing his cheeks on Foggy’s hands when he’s not fast enough with the next bite.

When the turkey is all gone and Pumpkin is licking his neck ruff, Foggy tries Matt’s cell again. It speaks up from somewhere inside the blanket on his bed. Oh well, if he comes home to a cat, at least Foggy _tried_ to warn him. Pumpkin Spice curls up on his legs as soon as he stretches them out on the bed, and Foggy strokes him while listening absently to podcasts. They sit like that for ages, only shifting a bit every once in a while.

The cat half-dozes in the nook of Foggy’s crossed legs now, curled into a tight and vibrating ginger loop. ‘You’re such a little cinnamon roll,’ Foggy tells him, ‘all rolled up like that. Precious pumpkin spice roll. Yes you are. Good kitty. Cuddly ball of gingerbread fluff… oh man, what is it with cats and making me talk like an idiot? I’m glad Matt’s not hearing this. Wait. Where is he, anyway?’ It’s ten to midnight and the snow is coming down in horizontal sheets now. ‘Aw shit, he didn’t get lost in the snow or anything, did he? God damn it!’ The cinnamon roll in his lap sprouts claws at that. ‘Ow! Seriously, you spend too much time in church, the both of you. Right, I’m going out looking for _him_ now.’ Foggy lifts the devout ball of pain off himself and it burrows under the blanket, tail all bushed up.

When Foggy comes back from the bathroom in now-dry jeans, he stops dead, staring and sputtering.

‘What – where – how did… Matt, _what_?’ Because where there was a small lump of cat not a minute ago, there is now a larger lump of human. ‘What are you _doing_? Where did you come from? Where’s P.S.?’

Matt curls further in under Foggy’s blanket at that, burying his head so only a tuft of hair can be seen. A perfectly _dry_ tuft of hair, which, just, _how_?

Foggy is getting mad now, mostly at himself for the absurd idea that just struck him – but also quite a lot at Matt, who is mumbling incoherently with his mouth covered by fleece.

‘Dude, can you _please_ get out of there so I can _hear you explain_ what the hell is going on?’ he demands. Matt groans audibly but emerges slightly from his nest.

‘Look, Foggy, I just – I just didn’t want you to, to, to go looking for me in this weather, okay, I’m sorry. I’ll explain, but… could you maybe um, hand me some boxers first?’

Foggy stares some more, then stomps over to the chest of drawers and yanks a pair of green undies out. He flings them at Matt’s face, but he snatches them out of the air before they make contact. He wrestles them on under the blanket and then slinks out from under it and over to his side of the room. And Foggy is so perplexed now that he has almost forgotten that he’s pissed off, because his mind is going _nuts_ trying to come up with a reasonable alternative to his current frankly insane leading theory about all of this. He paces frustratedly back and forth a bit, to little avail.

‘You never met him…’ he whispers, mostly to himself.

Meanwhile, Matt has climbed under his own covers, knocking his phone to the floor in the process, and is now hugging his legs to his chest and looking nothing short of terrified. His eyes dart unseeingly all around the room without going anywhere near Foggy who is now stood near the door, his arms crossed tightly in an attempt to keep himself from blowing up with confusion and madness.

Matt starts a fitful explanation, stumbling over every word. ‘Please don’t be mad, Foggy, please, I _was_ gonna tell you, I should have, I wanted to tell you, I just, it’s… you wouldn’t’ve –’

‘You’re a _cat_?’ Foggy interrupts. Matt flinches.

‘Yeah, I’m – well, no, I’m a human, I just – I can –’

‘Turn into a cat? Is that it?’

Matt is curled in on himself to the point where he looks like an actual cinnamon roll, now. ‘I – yes. I’m s-sorry…’

‘For what? For tricking me into _petting_ you? For lying to me? For being _naked in my bed_ with no warning? What?’ Matt mumbles something and Foggy wants to shake him. ‘What‽’

‘I didn’t lie to you,’ Matt repeats, louder and with a certain defiance.

‘Oh yeah? Well you sure as shit didn’t tell me the truth either, did you?’ Foggy’s arms explode from their vice grip around his middle, flying into the air above his head. ‘What the _hell_ , Matt?’

Matt whimpers and his face crumples and he mouths something into his knees. Foggy takes a few steps closer, nearly stomping and not caring one bit, and Matt curls impossibly tighter in his cotton cocoon. Foggy can still see his tears, though, and they make him deflate almost completely. Matt hardly notices. His voice quivers but he tries his hardest to speak clearly.

‘This is why I didn’t tell you. I wanted to… to _keep_ you. But I was gonna tell you, I really was. I’m sorry, I’m _so sorry_ , I was gonna tell you but I didn’t know how. I thought I could trust you but I was still afraid you’d – Do you think I’m a freak?’

Foggy barks a laugh at that. ‘Well, in a word: yes.’ Matt’s face twists again and he hides it under the covers. ‘But Matty, I’m a freak too.’ He sits carefully down at the end of Matt’s bed. ‘I used to hate it, but I’ve kind of come to terms – people used to call me freak, you know, growing up. And they were _right_ , and it _hurt_ , but I’ve come to terms with it, is what I’m saying. And you know what else? Non-freaky people are so boring.’ Foggy smiles to himself, because he just recognised the truth of the matter. ‘I’d rather be roomies with a non-boring sometimes-cat than a non-freaky always-human, okay?’

The lump that is Matt is shaking.

‘Matt, you breathing in there?’ And then Matt breathes, but in doing so, he also starts crying in earnest. ‘Oh Matty, pumpkin pie, I’m sorry…’ Foggy scoots nearer and puts a hand on one of Matt’s drawn-up knees.

‘Why are _you_ sorry?’ Matt chokes out.

 _Oh man._ 'For yelling at you when you were just trying to open up to me. For making you think I was gonna abandon you over this. And for making you _cry_ , okay?’

Matt sniffs.

‘Can I hug you?’ Foggy asks tentatively. ‘Or would you rather I pet your hair?’ he adds to maybe lighten the mood.

Matt half-laughs, then pops his head out to wipe his face on a corner of his sheets. His hair is dark chestnut (and currently extremely tousled) and his eyes are so brown they’re nearly black (and currently watery and red-rimmed) but somehow there is ginger and amber in there as well. Foggy stares.

‘Hug,’ Matt says. So Foggy moves up next to him by the headboard and pulls him close, bedclothes and all, and Matt nuzzles his face into his neck. A very cat move, that. He slowly dislodges his arms from within the blanket and puts them hesitantly around Foggy.

‘It’s okay, Matt,’ Foggy says, and Matt tightens the embrace.

They sit like that for a long time, and for some reason Foggy starts stroking Matt’s hair despite his current human appearance. Matt doesn’t purr, but he does make occasional humming noises. Eventually Foggy’s curiosity wins out and he lets go of Matt to voice it.

‘Can I see?’

Matt takes a while to respond. ‘What?’

‘Can I see you turn into a cat? I mean, that is _so cool_ , how do you do that?’ Excitement is taking over. Excitement is Foggy’s default setting. Brooding is Matt’s, so naturally he is a little baffled by this about-face.

‘I don’t know. I just do it?’ he says, frowning.

‘So you’re like a mutant then?’

‘I guess? You know, I _was_ splashed with radioactive waste as a kid; weirder things have happened, right?’

‘Yeah, at least you don’t turn into a giant green rage monster. Like I just kinda did.’ Matt smiles weakly. Foggy grins. ‘So, can I see?’

Matt sits up straighter and takes a deep breath. ‘I dunno, it’s hard when I’m… I need to be focused, like meditation, and right now I’m just…’ He shakes his head.

‘Upset. I know. It’s fine, you can do it some other time.’

Matt ducks his head. ‘Okay.’

They sit in silence for long minutes. Then they both speak up at once, breaking off with matching snorts.

‘Sorry, you go first.’

‘No, it’s okay, you first.’ Foggy’s question is probably dumb anyway.

After a beat, Matt lifts his chin in Foggy’s general direction in that endearing way he has when he’s really focusing. ‘So you’re not angry anymore, then?’

‘Nope. Okay, I could probably work up some anger if I started thinking about it… like, I mean, _allergic_ to cats, Matt, _really_?’

Matt fiddles with the hem of his duvet cover. ‘I am. Slightly. To normal cats. When I’m human.’

‘Huh. That sucks, dude. Okay, so maybe you didn’t lie, but you, I dunno, you _cuddled_ me! And I get it, I’m extremely cuddle-able, case proven, but still. Why? You could have just… asked? You know, with your voice.’

Matt shrugs. ‘That would be weird.’

And yeah, he has a point. Guys don’t generally just cuddle with their friends – unless one of them is crying, apparently. But if Matt was so desperate for cuddles, there is surely no shortage of girls (and guys for that matter) at this university who would gladly oblige. On the other hand...

‘Weirder than turning into a cat behind my back?’

‘… no?’

‘No. But I’m not angry. Right now, I’m just majorly curious. And amazed. I have _so many questions_!’ Matt makes a face that plainly says, “please, not now,” so Foggy takes pity on him. ‘But I’m gonna ask just one. Are you-as-a-cat still blind?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even the whole catty night goggle thingie?’

‘Foggy. My eyes don’t register _any light_ , okay? My cat eyes are no different.’

Foggy huffs. ‘Oh, they’re a little different. They’re amber, for one.’ Matt just shrugs. ‘Wait… you didn’t even know what colour your fur is before I told you, did you?’

‘I just… kind of always assumed I was black…’

Foggy looks him straight in the eye and solemnly says, ‘Black cats mean bad luck. You are no black cat, Matty. You’re my good luck charm!” His solemnity falls away halfway through that as he breaks out grinning. Matt swats him on the shoulder with a pffft-ing sound.

‘Okay, but seriously. Follow-up: What about your other senses?’ Matt flinches slightly. ‘I mean, cats have much better ears and noses than humans, yeah?’

‘Yeah, my… my other senses are incredible,’ Matt mutters, and Foggy gets the feeling that this is a bad path to continue down right now. Another subject change is due. More enthusiasm, coming up.

‘But this is epic, though!’ Foggy has only now fully realised the implications. ‘I can actually have Pumpkin Spice as a roommate and no litter boxes or housing regulation breakage need be involved!’

‘… please don’t call me that.’

‘Well, can I call you Spicy, at least? Or precious cinnamon roll? Gingersnap?’

‘Foggy…’ Matt is blushing yet again, adorably.

‘All right, fine. I’m okay with being the only one with a stupid nickname.’ 

Now Matt grins at him. ‘Thank you,’ he says, and Foggy briefly hugs him again.

Matt sighs deeply, then disentangles himself from his blanket nest. He shuts his eyes, breathes slowly, and… _shrinks_. Amber eyes with oblong pupils face Foggy. Bushy tail wraps around sharp-clawed paws. And Foggy gapes in fascination, because this is _Matt_.

‘Matt the cat.’ He doesn’t realise he said that out loud until a quick paw whacks him on the wrist. And then Matt walks right on over to Foggy to curl up in his lap. Weirder things have happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was just a tiny plot kitten that totally got away from me. And I have _so_ many headcanons to go with it, so please tell me yours in the comments! Like where does Matt change/hide his clothes? How did he discover this ability? What happens if he falls asleep as a cat? How easily can cat!Matt communicate with humans? And with real cats? _So many questions!_
> 
> At any rate, I hope you enjoyed my sudden trip down Shapeshifter Lane – and as always, thanks ever so for reading! ^__^
> 
> This has been beta'ed by the ever-amazing [thuviel](http://thuviel.tumblr.com). Thanks, mate! Not sure I would have dared post this without you. <3


	2. Matutinal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several years later, another one of Matt's secrets has been revealed. Foggy is shocked and angry, and Matt is badly injured, and they both still need each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after _Nelson v. Murdock_ , mostly season one canon compliant asides from cat. There isn't much cat in this chapter, though, not until right at the end, but that's for a reason.

The first call comes when Foggy steps out of the shower, and in his rush to the phone he almost picks up out of instinct. Then he sees who it is and drops the phone onto the bedroom rug. It lays there, face down, giving a final ring before quitting, while Foggy collapses on the bed. Not a minute later, it chirps with an incoming text, but Foggy is still sitting there in nothing but a towel because seeing that name on the screen drained all his willpower and he can’t get up. His chest aches too much. His limbs are too trembly.

The phone stays silent. Eventually Foggy summons the energy to slide off the bed onto the floor to reach for the wretched piece of glass and metal. His hand shakes when he picks it up. One new text message – a voicemail notification. He’s not going to listen to it. He is _not_. He taps the number.

‘You have one new message. _BEEP_. “Foggy, please, I – I can’t –” _BEEP_. Received today at –’

Foggy chucks the phone back on the rug. ‘Yeah well, I can’t either!’ he yells at it. ‘You dumb fuck,’ he adds, but where he was going for vicious, his voice betrays him and settles on broken instead. He stares unblinkingly at the phone for he doesn’t know how long as his vision grows increasingly blurry. There are twin oceans forming between his motionless eyelids, but his mind is blank. He finally blinks and the oceans spill waterfalls down his cheeks. Then he drags his hands down his face, gets up and forces himself to get dressed.

Breakfast is out of the question; he just downs a cup of coffee. It churns in his stomach like hot quicksilver and does nothing to alleviate the tremor in his hands. Probably the opposite.

The second call comes as he picks the phone off the carpet for the second time that morning, and he almost drops it again. He stares at the caller ID, a picture of Matt wearing Foggy’s beanie and smiling at the camera, all dimples. His thumb hovers over the reply icon. Two rings, three rings, four –

He picks up. He doesn’t say a word. Matt can probably hear him breathing anyway, that bastard.

‘Foggy?’ His voice is small. ‘Foggy, I’m sorry but I – there’s no one else I can call and I –’ Foggy hears Matt’s breathing too now as he takes a deep shuddery breath followed by a weak whine of pain. ‘I can’t. I can’t shift. I’m sorry, Foggy, please – I need –’ Matt’s voice runs out, the line silent now but for their equally shaky breathing. Then Matt hangs up.

Foggy lowers the phone from his ear and stares at the black screen, torn. He wants to be mad, it’s his only defence right now, but self-righteous anger and burning deceit are eroding away as a most familiar feeling starts dripping in. Worry; he’s always worried. Moving on autopilot, he pockets the phone, steps into his shoes and leaves his flat. And he was going to go left and straight when he got out of his building, go to the office like a professional, but his feet have already turned right as the dripping feeling grows into a stream grows into a torrent. He’s at Matt’s house in minutes, climbing the stairs all the way to the top.

The day Matt moved in, he had given Foggy a key to the roof access, and the day of the second Reveal – which feels so much more distant than just two days – Foggy had thrown it in the trash. But he knows where Matt keeps a spare, so he lets himself in. The déjà-vu makes him feel sick to his stomach, but he soldiers on down the stairs because the worry torrent has filled everything inside him by now.

Matt is on the sofa, half-sitting against the far armrest and curled up as tightly as his injuries will allow, which is to say not much. He is wearing sweats and the grey hoodie but his blanket has mostly slid off his shoulders onto the floor. His face tilts towards Foggy, vacant eyes following him down into the flat. Neither of them says anything.

This is all so wrong. How did they end up like this? How do they _end_ this? Foggy’s mind is nothing but anxious static and a confused jumble of worry and exasperation. He dumps his shoes and coat in a pile at the bottom of the stairs and sits in his usual armchair. He can’t look at Matt.

‘Thank you for coming,’ Matt whispers.

Foggy shrugs helplessly. ‘What do you even want me to do?’ he asks, quite despite himself. ‘Not like I can magically restore your catability or anything.’ Matt is silent. ‘Dammit, Matt –’ but the sentence has no idea where it’s going with this tug-of-war inside Foggy’s chest, so he clicks his jaw shut, teeth grinding. He drops his head, grabs a fistful of hair and clenches, hard. The pain anchors him a bit. ‘Do you even know how much I worry about you?’ he grits out.

‘Yes,’ Matt says, still in a whisper, and Foggy looks up at him. He is facing the cabinet of doom over by the stairs and there are tears down his face. He is doing nothing to wipe them away, not making a single sound to go with them. This apathetic crying is actually more worrying than the face-crumply variety of a few days ago.

‘Do you, really? Because this,’ Foggy gestures expansively at the broken form of his friend, ‘is just so beyond what I ever… you know I used to worry you’d get hit by a cab or fall down some stairs or something, not get beat up by _literal ninjas_ , Matt. And now it turns out that maybe those cabs and stairs and mundane shit like that aren’t even dangers to you and instead I get _this_?’ Foggy flings his arms out and resists the urge to get up and pace. ‘I mean, bad enough that you lied to me, I’m pissed as hell about that, but I’m more pissed about how _fucking scared_ I am for you now!’

Foggy thinks distantly that maybe this isn’t the best topic to delve into right now, not when Matt needs his help and Foggy is so close to going full on volcano mode on him again, but he simply cannot stop the flow of words. It stems from deep within the pool of anxiety in his chest, and his mouth is its only outlet. Unlike Matt, he has never been one to punch things – _people_ – for release. So he just lets the words run their course. After all, Matt isn’t the only one who is upset here.

‘I’m pissed at you for doing this to yourself,’ he continues, ‘and I’m pissed at myself for how scared I am, for how much I care about you after everything, but mostly I’m –’ Foggy drops his head, losing track.

‘I’m sorry,’ Matt whispers, earnestly.

‘I know you are.’ He can’t say it’s okay, doesn’t even know that he wants to, but the little word is stuck in his throat like a burr and it _hurts_.

Matt just nods. There is silence. There are oceans gathering in Foggy’s eyes again and he locks them behind the dam of his eyelids. Matt sniffs, very wetly, and Foggy thinks dully that maybe with all that mucus he won’t be able to smell Foggy’s tears.

Now Foggy is hunched over in this armchair that he vowed he had sat in for the last time, that day, and he has almost forgotten why he came. He listens closely to Matt’s short, pained breaths and finds after a while that this singular point of focus has driven the warmth from his eyes and the burr from his throat.

He looks up. ‘What do you want me to do, Matt?’ he repeats. His voice sounds tired, distant. Matt doesn’t respond, but he has stopped crying and wiped his face – there is a large wet patch on the sleeve of his hoodie. He looks _so lost_ , though. Lost and scared and trapped all rolled into one. Foggy quells a desperate urge to go hug him, because what with the state he is in that would certainly not improve matters.

‘I don’t know,’ Matt finally says, and he sounds as lost as he looks. Something shifts inside Foggy then, a wave of ague rolling down into his chest, and he has to. He lifts the chair up behind him – it’s heavy but he perseveres – and carries it over to Matt’s side. Close enough that his knees press against the sofa seat.

He reaches a hand out, slowly so that Matt can lean away if he wants to, and places it carefully in the crook between his neck and his left shoulder, one of the few places he knows are largely uninjured. Matt slowly closes his eyes.

There are so many stitches holding him together. Foggy counted them, several times. He watched as Claire put them there. And even though they’re now hidden under fuzzy cotton, he can still see them. It’s no wonder this body doesn’t have the energy to change species.

‘Why do you even want to?’ he asks. ‘Shift, I mean.’

Matt moves slowly, laboriously, under his palm. ‘Purring helps,’ he says. ‘It’s healing, calming, it’s – therapeutic.’

‘Oh.’ Foggy recalls reading somewhere that cats don’t only purr when content but also when hurt or ill. Then a thought strikes him. ‘But your stitches! If you turn into a cat, they’ll be all the wrong size and stuff.’ He sits up straight, but keeps his hand on Matt’s neck. ‘It’s probably a good thing you can’t.’

Matt shrugs minutely. ‘I’ve done it with stitches before. They just move closer together, maybe go a little looser.’

‘Claire will _kill_ you if you mess up those stitches. D’you have any idea how many there are? How close Claire was to taking you to the ER? You were unconscious and literally bleeding out all over the couch and she even had to stitch you up on the inside. Said you’re lucky it wasn’t your bowels or you would have gotten this peridot-something and _died_.’

‘Peritonitis,’ Matt provides.

‘Yeah, that.’ Foggy’s hand has slid off Matt during his rant and he replaces it gently. ‘You’re still ICU material, you know. I just think you should conserve your strength to heal.’

‘But that’s why I need to purr!’ Matt exclaims, ducking out from under Foggy’s hand.

‘Okay, yeah, I get that, but Matt… Claire said you had to take it easy for at least a week, and somehow I don’t think one hundred percent altering your body counts as taking it easy. What’s her opinion on that, by the way?’

‘I didn’t – I didn’t tell her… about the catting.’

And oh, now Foggy gets it. There was no one else to call since Foggy is the only one who knows. At first this makes him feel honoured, but then anger creeps back in. Because if Matt had told Claire about the shapeshifting then he would surely have called her instead – which means he only called Foggy because he literally had no other option.

Well, he did, Foggy supposes: suffer alone and in silence, as is his wont. For Matt to pick up the phone and call him when he needed him despite their current situation – that required trust.

But all he can think to say is ‘Oh. Right.’ This many conflicting emotions in one morning is more than Foggy can handle, especially on an empty stomach. Speaking of which… ‘Did you eat anything?’

Matt blinks in confusion at the drastic change of subject, or possibly from trying to remember the answer. ‘I think I ate some oatmeal yesterday? Couple bananas.’ He sounds like he knows Foggy will have a thing or two to say about this piss-poor excuse for nutrition, and he won’t disappoint.

‘Well, there you have it, then. You’re running on empty. You need _food_ , Matt. I’m making us an omelette.’

‘Foggy…’

‘Nope. No arguments. Besides, I haven’t had breakfast either – because of you, I might add.’

Matt acquiesces and Foggy reports to the kitchen. There’s a Get Well balloon with a monkey on it hovering by the fridge that’s pretty much got Karen written all over it. He asks about it anyway just to hear Matt say something not depressing, but all he gets is a sighed ‘yeah, she came by yesterday,’ so Foggy drops that line of conversation. He drops any attempt at conversation, in fact, and just keeps an eye on Matt while cracking eggs and grating cheese into a bowl. There’s not much to see; he just sits there, somewhat rigidly, eyes wide open.

Foggy hangs his suit jacket on a kitchen chair and texts Karen to tell her he’ll be late to work, then dices a couple of tomatoes to chuck onto the omelette. He almost succeeds at folding the thing into a neat half moon. The cheese sizzles. Foggy’s stomach growls at it.

There still is no sofa table, so Foggy gently places Matt’s plate right into his hands. Matt stretches his legs out, taking up most of the sofa, so Foggy sets his own plate down by the armchair. He hands over half the bouquet of cutlery, then goes back for water.

They eat in silence, and Foggy notes that although Matt starts out picking at his food and only putting minuscule pieces in his mouth, he is soon virtually wolfing it down. It occurs to Foggy that this must be the first real meal Matt has had since before his ninja-induced trauma – unless Karen or Claire brought anything over – and the thought makes him want to covertly shove the last few bites of his own food onto Matt’s plate. In the olden days he might have, and Matt would have pretended not to notice – and oh god, so many things he pretended not to notice. Foggy has barely scratched the surface of all this even though he has thought of little else since the night before yesterday’s.

Once the eating is done and he has dunked the kitchenware in the sink, Foggy is at a loss. There is nothing he can say to take away the pain that stands between them, because it is not okay and he is not ready to forgive and forget. This is so much worse than the first Reveal; back then they only barely knew each other and secrets could be excused. Besides, Matt never lied about cat related things, except maybe by omission, not like he did with this. This is their whole life together. All that they have. All that Foggy thought they had. Anything he can think to say will just dig them a deeper hole, and sure, he is still upset with Matt but he really doesn’t want to hurt him any more than he already is. _Than he already has_.

One of the things that have been running through his head on repeat since he last saw him is how absolutely _crushed_ Matt was just before Foggy left. The way his face crumpled and the forced control of his voice saying Foggy’s name. He has been trying to unhear the sob that made it out into the corridor as he was leaning despondently against the wall by Matt’s door.

Foggy cried that night, before calling Marci, but he would bet anything that Matt cried worse. He doesn’t want anything like that now. He’s here because Matt asked and because there is no one in the world he is more likely to be there for, present tension notwithstanding.

So Foggy just sits silently in the chair while Matt is slouched sideways and half curled up on the sofa, and oh shit, Matt can hear when Foggy is trying not to say things. This is so not helping. Why is he even here if this is the best he can do? A few more minutes of this and he will have made things worse without even speaking.

He makes himself look at Matt, then, _really_ look at him, and it takes him right back to the night of the cat Reveal. His eyes are open wide and flickering; his hands fidget incessantly with the hem of his sweater; and he looks pale in the morning light streaming through the vast windows. Matt is terrified, and Matt is _never_ terrified. He beats up ninjas and lord knows what else without even flinching and now he’s scared of Foggy? Foggy, who is, in Matt’s own words, “probably the one person I feel safe with, you know, really safe”. Now Foggy is angry at himself for his shitty way of handling this, but to Matt it just sounds like anger, any anger – so with the self-flagellating ways of his mind, it’s no wonder he looks increasingly like he wants to crawl under the bed.

Foggy forces his voice to behave. ‘Matty…?’ Matt flinches. ‘I’m not angry at _you_ , okay?’ Matt frowns. ‘I’m, okay, maybe a little, but mostly I’m worried.’ Matt tilts his head; Foggy suspects that he’s listening for the worry. ‘Look, I know you’re sorry. Well, guess what? I’m sorry too. I said some things I shouldn’t have, and we really need to talk about that night, but for now can we just start off with that? We’re both here, and we’re both sorry, okay?’

‘You don’t have to be sorry, you had every right to say those things.’

‘I really didn’t, actually. You’re my friend, and friends don’t verbally tear friends apart like that. Not okay, okay? So yeah, I do feel sorry. Deal with it.’

Matt cracks a smile. It’s small, almost imperceptible, but it’s there. His nervous hands relax slightly, too. That’s progress.

‘So… do you know why you can’t shift? Is it the physical injuries?’

Matt slowly shakes his head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You told me it’s like meditation, that you have to be calm for it to work. Well, you don’t exactly look calm.’

‘I’m not.’

Wow, that’s very forthright coming from Matt. ‘Yeah… Why not?’

‘Why do you think?’ His tone doesn’t match the rancour of those words. He just sounds defeated.

Foggy decides to take the question at face value. ‘Because of Fisk.’ He takes a deep breath for the next part. ‘Because of me.’

‘… yeah.’

‘We will get Fisk, Matt, don’t you worry. I’m not gonna let him hurt you again. Or anyone else. Plus we’ve got Karen on our side, and that woman is basically a pitbull-bloodhound crossbreed masquerading as a King Charles spaniel. So we’ll take him down. You _know_ we will.’

Matt nods. He struggles to unslouch himself, and Foggy helps him to sit up on the sofa the way sofas are meant to be sat on. Then he picks the blanket off the floor – it’s a bit bloody but the blood is dry and Foggy’s not easily squicked out by that kind of thing – and plops down at Matt’s side, letting the grey fabric flutter down over their legs.

‘And as for me,’ he continues, ‘I’m right here. You call, I come over. I wasn’t going to, but my brain got overruled. I’m here because I can’t not be. A Goose does not abandon his Maverick, okay?’

‘I thought I was Goose,’ Matt says, a careful smile in his voice.

‘No, you’re a wounded handsome _duck_. Learn your ornithology. Anyway, I’m pretty sure vigilante is just another word for maverick.’

Matt giggles, then winces. His hand moves to his side atop the blanket as he pales again.

‘Sorry, no more jokes.’ Foggy wonders how he will make it through the rest of this conversation without joking. ‘Don’t want you hurting yourself.’

And that’s really what this all boils down to.

‘But apparently that’s what you do now, isn’t it? You get yourself hurt _all the time_ in this mad quest for justice, and I get it, I do, and I know I can’t get you to stop. But I’m just so scared for you, Matty.’

‘I know.’

‘That’s why I’m angry.’

‘I know. I also know that’s not the only reason.’

Foggy winches internally, the pool of anxious energy inside him sending a spout of heat up his chest. ‘Oh?’

‘You’re mad because I didn’t think. Because according to you, I have two settings; overthinking and underthinking, and I obviously underthought this. I’m sorry, Foggy, I just hadn’t even considered what my devilry might do to you, and to Karen – to the people I care about. I didn’t want you to know because I thought ignorance would protect you from my… from this mess.’

Foggy has turned as far as he can towards Matt, his right leg up on the couch, and he is quite frankly staring because he may not be a human lie detector, but he knows Matt. He knows what he looks like, what he sounds like, when he’s telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is it.

‘But honestly,’ Matt goes on, ‘I mostly thought of how I – I couldn’t just stand by and let bad things happen, to our city, to our _people_ , not anymore. I couldn’t. I _can’t_. I have to do this, Foggy. I _have_ to.’

‘Yeah, you said. “I don’t want to stop,” you said. Which sounds more like you’re doing it because you _want_ to than because you _have_ to, really.’

‘Can’t it be both?’

Foggy sighs. ‘I think you’ll find that wanting implies enjoyment while having to implies being forced. I’d fetch a dictionary, but those don’t come in Braille.’ No more jokes, yeah right. But it’s fine, because Matt doesn’t even smile this time.

‘Foggy…’ He sounds pleading, but Foggy is rapidly going into lawyer mode.

‘Look, just answer me this, Matt: Do you enjoy it? Do you enjoy hurting people?’

Matt’s response is a long time coming, but Foggy can be patient when it counts. He looks him up and down as Matt plucks burls off the blanket and flicks the little balls across the room. He keeps frowning, and licking his lips, and opening and closing his mouth around half-formed sentences. And then his demeanour changes. His mouth twists down and he turns away, and when he faces Foggy again, his nostrils and chin are quivering as tears stand high in his eyes. Foggy can tell he just came to a previously unreached conclusion.

‘No,’ he says. ‘But the devil does.’

Foggy has no idea what he’s talking about. Whatever it is, though, it’s obviously important, and he can’t let himself bungle this now. Neither he nor Matt has ever felt weak or awkward about crying in front of the other, but Matt very rarely tells Foggy what goes through his mind when he does.

‘The… the devil of Hell’s Kitchen?’ Foggy is so confused now, because Matt _is_ the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

‘The devil… inside me. It’s a thing my grandmother used to say, about my dad and me. “Be careful of the Murdock boys; they’ve got the Devil in ‘em”.’ Foggy cannot believe this is the first he’s heard of this. ‘And it’s true – it’s true. My dad, he – he let it out in the ring. He didn’t want me doing the same. I’ve just – I’ve tried so hard to – all my life, I –’

The pent-up tears fall down Matt’s face in one big cascade, his throat closing up around whatever the end of that sentence was going to be. Foggy can take a pretty good guess, though – not that he’s going to voice it now. He’ll let Matt put it into words himself when he can. For now he will simply be here.

Matt is trying to hold himself together. He’s got his hands balled up around the blanket, his mouth and eyes squeezed shut, and he’s breathing carefully through his nose in an attempt to take control. But tears keep leaking out, and Foggy can tell this is a losing battle.

He places his hands on Matt’s, softly. ‘Thank you for telling me that,’ he says. ‘And for the record, that devil as you call it? I _know_ that’s not really you.’ Foggy wonders why he even asked the question, because he truthfully did know the answer all along.

But maybe Matt didn’t. Maybe that’s why he’s so distraught.

‘And it’s most definitely not a devil, buddy. It’s anger, and pain, but it’s not… evil, and it’s not some internal monster, it’s just your feelings. You’re not _bad_ , Matt, not one bit. Wanna know how I know? Because I know _you_.’ 

Matt shakes his head, sniffs. ‘You said you didn’t.’

Oh yeah. Maybe they really do need to talk about that day right now after all.

‘I did, didn’t I? But Matt, I was extremely upset right then. I thought everything I’d ever known about you was a lie, but I was _so wrong_.’

Matt’s face twists as his carefully measured breaths lose their rhythm, and Foggy keeps going. This is something that Matt needs to know, and Foggy will do his all to get the point across.

‘Hey, dude, listen to me. Okay, so I didn’t know everything about what you do, and what you _can_ do, yeah, that’s true – but I know _you_. You’re the most moral person I’ve ever known, and maybe sometimes your morals don’t really match mine. So what? You always try to do what you think is right. You said we don’t live in a world that’s fair, but I think… your goal is _making_ it one, right?’

Matt shrugs, but it’s an affirmative sort of shrug; Foggy can see it in his face. Even though he’s still breathing shakily, he has relaxed a fraction.

‘Right. And you studied your ass off becoming a lawyer so you could do just that. And now it turns out you’ve also been _training_ your ass off to become some sort of martial arts champ – all so that you can work the flip side, too.’

Another piece of the puzzle that will be putting their friendship back together just materialised in Foggy’s head even as he was saying that. 

‘I’m hella proud, as the kids say,’ he adds. Matt smiles through his tears. Foggy squeezes his hands. ‘And I think your dad would be too.’

That is the wrong thing to say. Matt goes perfectly rigid, just for a moment – and then he folds forward across their joined hands as the sobs he’s been holding at bay start pouring out of him full force.

It has to be agonising, what with the deep gashes and broken ribs, and Foggy lets go of his hands to steady him. ‘Oh Matty, I’m sorry. Come here, it’s gonna be okay….’

He somehow manages to prop Matt up against his chest with minimal wound touching, then holds him there with one hand at his neck and one in his matted hair. Matt is lost in waves of anguish, sobbing wordlessly, convulsively, into Foggy’s lapel, and Foggy doesn’t know what to do. He has seen Matt cry before, heaps of times, but this violently? Only once, and that ended with him hyperventilating to the point of nearly passing out. He does not want a repeat of that, ever, and particularly not with Matt in the state he’s in now.

He rakes his fingers through his hair, because for all that Matt claims not to be a cat when he’s a human, Foggy knows without a doubt that he enjoys being petted like one no matter his form. It calms him down. 

‘Hey, Matty, sch, ssssch. You know I’m all for crying, crying’s healthy, but this… you’re really friggin’ hurt and this is… I need you to try and calm down, all right?’ No response, just more sobs. ‘Matt, buddy, nod if you’re getting this?’ Matt nods irregularly, gasping for breath. ‘Okay, good. That’s good.’

It’s _not_ good, Foggy thinks, this is anything but good. It’s terrible and terrifying and he keeps stroking his friend silently because he has no idea where he’s supposed to go from here. Things had been going quite well there, up to a point, and then Foggy just had to go and mention Jack. He knows that’s a deep wound that has healed all wrong, and he’s so not equipped to handle this level of emotional trauma.

Unfortunately, he’s all Matt’s got right now, so he will just have to save the self-chastising for later and deal with this. Maybe redirection will help.

‘Matt, can you hear my heartbeat right now?’ Of course he can; his ears are inches from Foggy’s chest. ‘What does it sound like?’

Matt is still wracked with sobs, grabbing at the front of Foggy’s shirt like he’s the only port in the storm.

‘Sssch, Matt, just listen.’

Matt takes a breath and holds it, which while not exactly ideal is at least better than potential hyperventilation. Foggy tries to hear his own heart, but all he can hear are street sounds and the gurgle of Matt’s freezer as it defrosts itself… and this whole not breathing thing should probably stop now, by the way. He lets the air out of his own lungs slowly, demonstratively, and is relieved when Matt shakily copies him.

Matt sniffs repeatedly – Foggy wishes he had some tissues or a gentlemanly handkerchief or something – and his voice is all hoarse, chopped-up and sticky when he speaks up.

‘It sounds… like a running… like those gazelles on… on nature programmes… when the lions come…’

Okay then, fair enough. ‘That bad, huh?’

Matt nods against Foggy’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Fog.’

‘Huh?’

‘I’m sorry, I’m – I know I’m scaring you.’ The words come out in stutters, but at least he’s talking. Still crying, still sobbing, but not torn to shreds by it anymore.

‘What scares me is how hurt you are,’ Foggy says. _Physically and emotionally_ , he doesn’t add. ‘And that I can’t help you with that.’

‘You’re helping.’ Matt sits up slightly by pushing himself off Foggy’s waist, winching with pain. He leans his shoulder gently against the back of the couch and blots at his face with the cuff of his sweater. He looks awful. Foggy wishes again for tissues.

‘No, I shouldn’t have made you cry like that, I should have realised –’

Matt cuts him off. ‘You know, even before Dad died, I studied so hard, because he wanted me to. It was important to him. And I learned Braille so I could keep at it. And then he –’ Matt’s mouth twists again, but he ploughs on, stammering increasingly but apparently unable to stop, ‘– he was – and suddenly I had a _focus_ , a _reason_ to keep studying. Lawyers help the wronged, punish the bad, that’s what I figured. The men who hurt my dad, they wronged _me_. I needed him and he left me and those bastards got away.’

Foggy loses track a bit at the “he left me” because Matt’s dad was shot. He didn’t leave on purpose. Did he? But Matt is still talking, intensely and dejectedly all at once, somehow.

‘I thought maybe I could – if not them, then at least others like them – I could make them pay, you know? Turns out it wasn’t enough. What we do, it’s within the law, and you know as well as I do – _stare decisis_ be damned – the law’s got holes. People like that always find the holes.’ 

Foggy nods, absently. He might be getting it now.

Matt is fiddling with the drawstring of his hood, unravelling the aglet bit by bit. ‘So I followed them down the hole, and the hole swallowed me up, and I think maybe this is just where the devil was leading me the whole time.’

Now Foggy is shaking his head instead, out of disbelief more than denial. ‘Matty…’

‘Look, Foggy, this is part of me, it always has been, and now I’ve let it out I don’t think I can reign it back in. I know you don’t like to see it, and I never wanted you to, but –’

Foggy’s hands shoot up to grab Matt’s again, stilling their fidgeting and cutting him off. ‘You’re right, I don’t like to see it. But I want to. Because I love you, okay, and if this is part of you then I _have_ to see it. I can’t just pick out the good parts like you’re some box of assorted candy or – Matt?’

Matt has pulled his hands away and is hunching over slightly. ‘You… I’m not – I’m sorry, I –’ There are fresh tears in his eyes now, and he flings the blanket off and gets up, sniffing.

‘Matt, what…?’ Foggy begins, but then he realises that Matt is only heading for the bathroom. He shuts the door, blows his nose and probably washes his face, based on the sound of running water, then closes the toilet lid. There’s silence behind the door and Foggy restrains himself from asking anything or going over there to knock. He gathers the tangled blanket and attempts to fold it into something neater, more for something to do than anything else, but this time when he sees the blood on it everything inside him just _twists_.

How is this apparently normal now? This will never be normal. Or okay. How could this ever be okay? He throws the blanket on the floor with a whispered curse, swipes at his eyes in annoyance. There has been too much crying this morning already. There’s probably a quota, and right now Matt rightfully holds the claim to the vast majority of it.

He takes a steadying breath, hoping his voice will sound normal when he asks, ‘You okay in there, buddy?’

Matt replies immediately, to Foggy’s great relief. ‘Yeah, yeah, just had to change this bandage…’ Right. So not very relieving after all, then. 

Maybe Matt will bring back tissues from the bathroom. Foggy would call out a request but his voice has mutinied and he’s been set adrift on the ocean of anxiety, so he just stares dimly at the bloody blanket and wills his face to stop leaking, but that’s clearly not happening. And his chest won’t stop aching. There seems to be a weight holding his diaphragm down, keeping him from breathing normally, and his hands are shaking. His whole body is shaking, actually, and he decides that breathing shouldn’t be this shallow. Pressing a hand to his chest, he makes himself fill and empty his lungs enough for it to move, over and over, focussing on nothing else.

He’s done this for Matt before. He never fully realised how hard breathing can be until now, though. Eventually it gets easier again, but he’s still quivering.

When Matt finally comes out into the lounge, Foggy doesn’t dare look up at him at first because he’s afraid of what he will see. But then he _has_ to look, just to assure himself that it’s an unfounded fear. Matt is walking slowly, stiffly, and his face is still puffy, but asides from all that he looks fine. He’s okay, it’s okay –

‘What’s wrong?’ Matt asks, stopping in front of Foggy with a worried frown.

‘“What’s wrong?”?’ Foggy’s voice is a flat choke, his rhythmic breathing scattered again. ‘Have you _seen_ yourself? Sorry, don’t answer that, just…’ Foggy shoves his hands between his knees to stop their shaking. ‘Just sit down?’

He nudges the blanket under the couch with his foot so Matt won’t trip over it, the movement almost instinctual after so many years of automatically accommodating. If Matt notices, he doesn’t mention it as he sits back down by Foggy’s side, groaning softly. Then he lays a hand tentatively on Foggy’s arm.

‘I’m okay, Foggy,’ he says.

Foggy lets out a laugh that is half-sob. ‘Yeah, well, your definition of “okay” really kinda sucks, dude.’

‘I _will be_ okay, then, is that acceptable?’ There’s a smile in Matt’s voice.

Dropping all pretence of decorum, Foggy wipes his eyes on his shirtsleeves. He’s clearly not going into work today anyway. ‘You damn well better be,’ he says. ‘Because I need you, Matty. I can’t have you leave me.’

He looks up imploringly, even though Matt can’t see it. Matt in his turn mostly looks disbelieving, almost shocked.

‘Please don’t leave me,’ Foggy adds.

‘I won’t, I won’t leave you, Foggy, I – I didn’t –’ Matt is shaking his head, slowly.

Suddenly Foggy is fairly sure he knows what is going on inside that messed-up brain of his friend’s. _‘I needed him and he left me and those bastards got away.’ ‘No, Stick left when he thought I was getting too close to him.’ ‘This is why I didn’t tell you. I wanted to keep you.’_ And the utter devastation the other night when Foggy walked out of his apartment.

Matt’s worst fear is being abandoned. And Foggy will never put him through that.

He has stopped crying at this revelation, even though it’s a devastating notion, because this is the core of their past, present and future – disturbingly codependent though it may be. They need one another, and that will have to be enough to rebuild on.

‘You can say it too, if you want,’ he suggests. Matt tilts his head towards him, mouth slack, wordlessly informing Foggy that he’s got it right. He has hit the proverbial home run, and now he’s just waiting for Matt to complete the lap.

It takes a while, because the lap around this concept must be a veritable obstacle course for Matt, but eventually he says, ‘Foggy?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Please don’t leave me?’

Foggy triumphs internally, smiling shakily but proudly. ‘I _will not_ leave you, buddy. I’m here, aren’t I?’ Matt nods. ‘I’m sorry I walked out, but I’m back.’ Matt nods again.

Foggy puts an arm around his shoulder and tilts him carefully until they’re leaning on each other.

‘Thank you,’ Matt mumbles, and then he _breathes_. Foggy recognises this breathing, although it’s a bit shallower than normal, and he sits stock-still so as not to disturb anything. His own breathing falls into the pattern too while the weight in his chest slowly dissipates.

Long minutes pass, and then Foggy finally feels the familiar shrinkage next to him. Matt the orange cat crawls gingerly out of the hoodie, the newly replaced sterile compress still sticking to a patch of fur. Foggy eases it off and Matt lies down on top of the grey clothing next to him. He doesn’t curl up into a cinnamon roll like he normally does, but lies flat on his left side with all four paws pointing at Foggy.

It is heartbreaking to see him like this, a small injured animal. Foggy puts a hand gently on his head, trying to figure out where he can safely pet him right now. The tail should be fine; Matt the human has no tail to hurt. So he sets up a soothing rhythm of head-scratching and tail-stroking, watching Matt relax for possibly the first time in two days. It takes a little longer than usual, but eventually he starts purring.

They sit like that for a long time, until Foggy excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Matt probably understands; Foggy has learned over the years that Matt gets most of what is being said to him when he’s a cat, although he doesn’t show it. And anyway, it seems polite to communicate. Matt lies up on his elbows and listens in the direction Foggy went, then tracks him with his ears when he comes back and walks past him into the kitchen to fetch water: one bowl and one glass.

When Foggy lies flat on his back on the sofa, Matt immediately hauls himself up to limp over and ease down on top of his belly. His purring grows louder, vibrating through Foggy’s chest and drying up the sea of worry ever so slightly. If the truth about who Matt is has tossed their lives into disarray, at least they still have this.

By now it’s nearing midday. Foggy wonders idly why Karen hasn’t texted him back. He should drop her another line saying he probably won’t be in at all today – that Matt needs him and she should just put up a “closed due to illness” sign on the door or something and take the day off. But Matt has tilted his head so Foggy can scratch him under the chin, his eyes closed with rapture. The world can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were going to be four chapters in this story, but I've not yet written chapters two and three. Meanwhile, this has been sitting in my fics folder for like a year now and I finally decided to just post it.
> 
> Thank you for reading! And if you would like those other chapters, just tell me. I want to start writing again! :D


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